It was either in 87 or 88. I was introduced to Sergei Kuskov, we had a drink somewhere, and our companion took it into his head to drag me into the apartment of his artist father. After stocking up on wine, we went into the entrance of an old beautiful house in Obydenskoye. The owner who opened the door, with the dignity of a lion and the gallantry of a gentleman, extended his hand to me, introducing himself: “Ivan Kuskov.”
But my eyes were already glued to the drawings hanging everywhere, tightly connected in my memory with a bunch of childhood books: Till, Don Quixote, Ivanhoe, Mine Reid, Cooper... But the main thing is - Three Musketeers!!! Probably half the pleasure from these books came from the pictures - you could look at them for a long time and in detail.
The owner really turned out to be the author of all these illustrations and I looked at him, wide-eyed. “The Three Musketeers” was the first book that I read in the full sense on my own: having barely learned to read, I stole a thick red volume with fascinating pictures from the “adult” shelf. I remember that in my own way I transformed the incomprehensible names of the heroes, and when I later heard about D’Artagnan and Aramis, I did not immediately realize that these were exactly the people with whom I had already known in early childhood...
The owner's only room was no less remarkable than himself.
Empty bottles were found everywhere here. But storing empty glass containers is the most important feature of the owner’s personality. For example, in Itskovich’s famous apartment on Kalashny, a corner of a large half-empty room, which served as a living room, was allocated for this purpose. Empty bottles were placed one by one, starting from the corner, and over time they evenly filled the volume of the hall, forming on the wooden floor a map of some continent with fluctuating outlines.
For Kuskov, bottles were not containers or material for creating new forms. These were just bottles and each one found its place. Cognac bastards sprouted small shoots among other unimaginable half-broken souvenirs on a chest of drawers topped with an antique lamp with a homemade lampshade. Impressive “fire extinguishers” from port turned into dusty bottles from Burgundy drunk in the dark of a tavern and, wrapped in draperies of old fabrics, were woven into still lifes with a broken box and a carelessly thrown dagger. In addition to them, there were some decanters and wine glasses - either antique crystal, or bought yesterday in a souvenir shop. The walls and ceiling were painted with images that were barely visible in the darkness. The interior was filled with all kinds of hats, fake swords, old mirrors, horns, shells and a host of other obscure objects.
Both this apartment and the chivalrous manners of the owner were very attractive. But from the entire conversation I remember only the discussion of the question of whether to go get some more wine or whether it’s time to go home...
At the time of the visit, there was a guest in the apartment - a friend, as the owner introduced him, although he found it difficult to name his name. He was a drunkard philosopher, typical of those old Moscow alleys, who by that time had almost lost the power of speech, but behaved with dignity and significance.
I visited Kuskov Sr., it seems, once more. And since then, his son and I have sometimes crossed paths at some opening days. Sergei Kuskov was a highly respected art critic in certain circles. He worked, it seems, at the Tretyakov Gallery, he had colossal erudition, but he was more involved in contemporary art: he wrote, curated exhibitions. In the 90s, I became interested in the artistic projects of the NBP - still “the one” where the spirit of Kuryokhin, Dugin and Letov hovered. We had a drink somewhere a couple of times. Having drunk, he first heatedly launched into an exposition of some fascinating and controversial ideas. Once, falling into a rage, he tried to grab my throat... I tried to understand him, it seemed that he saw something important, but his speech was too slurred, his diction worsened with each glass, and I was often completely busy other thoughts. Sergei left me with a feeling of some kind of childish insecurity. Once he said that his father was seriously ill. And over time he completely disappeared from view.
I learned about the fate of both Kuskovs the other day from the diary of one artist:
“The life of the artist Ivan Kuskov ended tragically. During “perestroika”, when there was no alcohol on sale, he, with some former sea captain (I suspect that it was a demon in the form of a captain), bought and drank alcohol. For nine years, until his death, the blind Ivan Kuskov was bedridden. Art critic Sergei Kuskov was forced to exchange housing on the “golden kilometer” of Ostozhenka for Ryazansky Prospekt. After the death of his father, he ended up in the Krasnodar region and died of pancreatic cancer at the age of 53. "
All that we could find biographically about Kuskov Sr. was a tiny note on the website of the Moscow Art School Museum, where, it turns out, his works are stored.
And finally, collected in the LJ community first_books.
We managed to find only a few mentions of Sergey in blogs and fragments of his articles:
And an example of his “signature” style:
“So, it is no coincidence that on a black background, as in the skies of the night, a whole constellation of such small but cosmic sign-forms, sign-bodies appears. These are often ancient solar or astral signs, more often - modern author’s transformations and variations that do not break with the spell primary Archetypes. This is how it should happen: after all, the Archetype lives only by reincarnating and reincarnating each time anew, always flickering differently on the verge of being recognizable and unrecognizable."(from an article about a ceramic artist)
The owner's friend among his works
Sergei Kuskov and Alexander Dugin at a squat near Petliura present a performance with some defiant fire-worshipping fascist idea. I don’t remember the idea, I only remember that the burners of the gas pipes were blazing, and the likenesses of these hanging “living corpses” were being burned in the fire.
VODKA BE DAMNED.
The cause of the incident was an empty drink can, which a local art critic carelessly placed on one of the parts of the composition- 12.02.2020 Continuation of our material in the “Tips for Beginning Collectors” section. Today we will talk about how the culture of collecting was created in Europe over the centuries - and in what form it arrived at the beginning of the 20th century
- 10.02.2020 AI analyzes data from the ArtTacic Single Owner Collections Auction Analysis Report on public market sales of once-solely owned collections
- 05.02.2020 In the “Theory of Misconceptions” section, from now on we will eradicate myths that are successfully presented as facts and negatively affect the development of the art market and the investment climate. First on the “operating table” is Mei & Moses All Art Index
- 04.02.2020 “The enchanting beauty of Lvov’s drawings...”, the critic wrote about the works of a very young author. The AI Auction exhibits a canvas by a mature master with a developed creative style and a unique sense of freedom
- 04.02.2020 The first material in the “Art and Technology” column gives our reader a historical retrospective and a brief assessment of the current situation in the ArtTech market
- 27.01.2020 A new exhibition opens in the halls of the Vellum gallery in Gostiny Dvor
- 24.01.2020 The exhibition of the pioneer of Russian constructivism will be held at the Tate St Ives gallery and will be dedicated to the 100th anniversary of his “Realist Manifesto”
- 25.12.2019 In the coming year, many museums around the world have prepared real blockbuster exhibitions. In order not to get confused in all the variety of first names and not to miss something interesting, it’s time to start compiling a calendar of future events
- 17.12.2019 The exhibition, opening on December 19 in the main building of the museum, on Petrovka, 25, is an attempt to take a fresh look at the museum’s extensive collection of Russian art: the curators of the project are 20 famous figures from various professional fields
- 12.12.2019 April 6, 2020 marks 500 years since the death of one of the greatest artists of the Renaissance. Ahead of major events next year, the Berlin Art Gallery is opening an exhibition of Madonnas by Raphael Santi
Walking along the long narrow corridor of a communal apartment, we find ourselves in a reserved world, in something completely different from all the dwellings or artist’s workshops we have encountered so far. A narrow, cramped room, lost among the alienated everyday life, suddenly turns out to be both a work of art, and an oasis of Freedom - a keeper of cultural memory, and an imprint of life experience, which was won by many years of resistance to the average and secure common existence. This is a multi-layered, hierarchically built space, and therefore it is a kind of state within a state, physically tiny, but containing the Universe. 
Every (by no means random) detail, every small and seemingly particular embodies the spirit of remembrance of an imaginary “promised land”, a lost but reconstructed homeland, the image of which is an image of a former Europe seen with the far-sightedness of a spyglass and transformed by the power of imagination . From childhood, the knightly antiquity forces him, like Don Quixote, to set off again and again in search of adventure, now with the help of his favorite books, tributes to Bacchus and the sharpened pen of a virtuoso draftsman, who so often likens the network of a pen drawing to the intricacies of an etching stroke (and this magical weapon serves him so well as reliable as a faithful sword to a knight errant). In the world he created, he is a demiurge, a ruler, a titan and a master artist. Obedient only to God’s will, he feels himself to be a conductor of the Divine principle, which allows him to categorically declare: “I am God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.” 
Hence the requirement of absolute honesty to one’s craft and one’s calling, to one’s chosen heroes and idols. Creativity constantly spills over the boundaries of art as an isolated cultural sphere and turns to being itself, to life in general. Various quotes, As a romantic, he is also attracted by the manifestation of the mysterious and supernatural; the real and the fantastic are closely intertwined here: it is not without reason that the visionary and esthete Edgar Allan Poe is among his first idols. However, the absolute requirement is the truth and accuracy of the fantastic, the proportionality of Mystery, logic and empirics. For example, while idolizing E. Poe, the artist has much less sympathy for Hoffmann, whose excessive floweriness of fantasy seems excessive to him. However, in the case of the unconditionally convincing truth of art, he does not exclude any fictions and phantasmagoria: he highly appreciates Hieronymus Bosch, and among the modernist movements of the 20th century he speaks with respect of the surrealist branch, especially highlighting Salvador Dali. The requirement to paint like the old masters is aimed at an extremely visual, tangible, concrete embodiment of the Idea. The illusionism of his spaces, the microcosm of the sheet, is due to the fact that, by his own definition, he wants to travel, immersing himself in them in order to touch every detail, every little thing from everything he has created. 
This combination of documentary authenticity and the aura of the Mystery, the distinct physiological accuracy and profundity of hidden subtexts and, finally, the resurrection of the sheet-painting as a kind of “mirror” of a certain real-ideal world - all this helps to understand why among the spiritual ancestors from the Renaissance it is especially special for him Leonardo and Durer are significant. He turned to the image of Leonardo as the hero-character of one of his sheets back in the post-war Stalinist years, which, by the way, served as a reason for meeting and further friendship with another outsider of his time - Dmitry Krasno-Pevtsev. The penchant for painstaking reconstruction of historical costume and other surroundings of the era, along with the already mentioned magical clarity of material realities, should not be identified either with the techniques and worldview of the wretched academicism of the socialist realist school, or with the infantile-feminine theatricality of the Left Moskhov carnivals, or with the kitschy retrospectiveness of all sorts of historicizing “salons.” " 
Kuskov’s retrospectivism, in contrast to the aforementioned “returns to origins,” does not at all have the aftertaste of a sugary idealization of the past, and the passions and events of the world he generated are by no means a puppet-like prop imitation of “childhood dreams.” His world is permeated by powerful, completely unknown forces of life and death, fate, fate, fate. The impending fatality, however, does not suppress or dissolve the Personality, but, on the contrary, crystallizes it. Such, for example, is the luck of the drunken sailors-lovers of life in “King Plague”: the visible presence of death and danger, the “spell of horror”, materialized in the frighteningly fascinating panorama of an extinct urban landscape, only shades and intensifies the life-creating energy of the master and his heroes. 
A living character is always visibly or invisibly accompanied by projections of the otherworldly - the mask of death, the eschatological shadow, the “impenetrable presence of the Incomprehensible Other.” The night side of the soul, excited by “drinking,” reading and tireless creativity, imparts a visionary dimension to the space of life, so vital, lived-in, experienced. The element of the irrational is tamed by art. The gifts of fantasy are exquisitely processed, ordered, cultivated in the workshop of the imagination. Having crystallized from the book world, these sheets have acquired a strange self-sufficiency, no longer being illustrations at all. Not attributable to painting, graphics, or illustration, the figurative series of these sheets “for oneself” seems to be a kind of meaningful symbolic language, where each image participates in the construction of the overall picture of the universe. 
The image of the world, so merged here with the way of life, is conceivable only through an Image, living, personal, concrete, reliable, always carrying news of what is vitally important. Each of these unique spaces is a conclusion from a previous life and at the same time an exit, a magical secret door, a “porthole window” of the captain’s cabin. This is a way, without leaving the cabin, to vigilantly observe and map the images of such familiar, but in fact alluring depths, distances, and horizons with the unknown. A completely isolated environment, where real windows have not been cleaned for years, is full of “windows”, doors and vestibules through which the prospect of unlimited travel opens up.
Art critic Sergei Kuskov, son of Ivan Kuskov
Edited by Natalia Brilling
In the museum and exhibition complex of the Moscow Academic Art Lyceum of the Russian Academy of Arts from January 31 to February 18, 2008. There was a personal exhibition of the 1946 graduate of the Moscow Art School, the wonderful illustrator Ivan Kuskov.
Ivan Sergeevich Kuskov is a famous book graphic artist, the author of illustrations for books that everyone read - “The Three Musketeers”, “Till Eulenspiegel”, “Don Quixote”... He was admired by his colleagues and simply admirers, calling him “the second Durer”, “the king of illustrations” . The artist was born in 1927 into the family of a pediatrician in Moscow, on Obydensky Lane near Ostozhenka. “Born, live, die in the same old house,” this quote from Saint Beuve, later written by Kuskov on the door of his room, actually became the motto of the artist, who actually lived in this house, in his sixteen-meter communal room, all his life. 
After the fourth grade of secondary school, he entered the first grade of the Moscow Art School, which had just opened in 1939. From 1941 to 1943 he was evacuated with this school in Bashkiria. He graduated from school in 1946. In 1947 he entered the Surikov Institute and graduated in 1952. Since then he has worked as an illustrator for various publishing houses. I.S. showed his talent as an illustrator. Kuskova very early. The museum's collection includes works he made at the age of nine. These compositions on historical themes amaze with their ability to compose and knowledge of the historical era. 
His schoolmates said about him that he was a natural phenomenon, and “already in the cradle he was scratching with a feather the illustrations for “The Three Musketeers”... During his creative life, the artist illustrated about a hundred books. For Kuskov, the characters of literary classics seemed to come to life; he was an accomplice in the action being described. The interiors, landscapes, and costumes of the heroes of the works amaze with their artistic truth.
He had many admirers, he corresponded with many, receiving a lot of feedback from various places in the country. He greatly valued these contacts with readers. It was in this not official-Soviet, but the true sense of the word that he was truly a people's artist. By the will of fate, the entire legacy of the talented artist - his numerous drawings, etchings, of which there are more than 2000, archives - went to our museum. This is a great honor and a huge responsibility for museum employees. The presented exhibition contains only a small part of his inheritance, but it gives a complete idea of the breadth of the artist’s talent. I.S. Kuskov mainly worked in ink and pen techniques. 
But he also turned to easel graphics. His watercolor compositions have been preserved and can be seen at the exhibition. In addition to book illustrations made by the artist after graduation, the exhibition includes his school works, which in their skill are not inferior to the works of his mature period. I.S. Kuskov did not have any regalia or titles, but his work will always evoke admiration among true connoisseurs of fine art.
The Three Musketeers was my favorite book as a child. My friends and I literally lived in 17th century France. I think there were many of us like that, because every now and then I find in different diaries memories of my “musketeer” childhood. We loved everything that was somehow connected with the musketeers. And of course, they compared the illustrations in their well-read books. Yes, everyone had their own book with illustrations by different authors. Now I read that the best illustrator of The Three Musketeers is the Frenchman Maurice Leloir. But for me personally, and I think for many of my peers, the best illustrations of our childhood that he gave us will remain Ivan Sergeevich Kuskov.
I will post illustrations by I.S. Kuskov for various editions of “The Three Musketeers” - 1974, 1976 and 1990.
Illustration from the flyleaf of The Three Musketeers, 1974 edition.
Here's what I found about the artist: Ivan Sergeevich Kuskov is a famous book graphic artist, the author of illustrations for books that everyone read - “The Three Musketeers”, “Till Eulenspiegel”, “Don Quixote”... His colleagues and simply admirers admired him, calling him “the second Durer", "the king of illustrations".
The artist was born in 1927 into the family of a pediatrician in Moscow, on Obydensky Lane near Ostozhenka. “Born, live, die in the same old house,” this quote from Saint Beuve, later written by Kuskov on the door of his room, actually became the motto of the artist, who actually lived in this house, in his sixteen-meter communal room, all his life. After the fourth grade of secondary school, he entered the first grade of the Moscow Art School, which had just opened in 1939. From 1941 to 1943 he was evacuated with this school in Bashkiria. He graduated from school in 1946. In 1947 he entered the Surikov Institute and graduated in 1952. Since then he has worked as an illustrator for various publishing houses. I.S. showed his talent as an illustrator. Kuskova very early. The museum's collection includes works he made at the age of nine. These compositions on historical themes amaze with their ability to compose and knowledge of the historical era. His schoolmates said about him that he was a natural phenomenon, and “already in the cradle he scratched with a feather the illustrations for “The Three Musketeers” ...
During his creative life, the artist illustrated about a hundred books. For Kuskov, the characters of literary classics seemed to come to life; he was an accomplice in the action being described. The interiors, landscapes, and costumes of the heroes of the works amaze with their artistic truth. He had many admirers, he corresponded with many, receiving a lot of feedback from various places in the country. He greatly valued these contacts with readers. It was in this not official-Soviet, but the true sense of the word that he was truly a people's artist.
D'Artagnan in Menge, 1974
D'Artagnan in Menge, 1990
Rochefort, 1974
Rochefort, 1990
Staircase of Mr. de Treville, 1976
Desho Monastery, 1974
Desho Monastery, 1990
D'Artagnan saves Constance, 1974
D'Artagnan saves Constance, 1990
D'Artagnan, Constance and Buckingham, 1974
D'Artagnan, Constance and Buckingham, 1990
Mr. and Mrs. Bonacieux, 1976
Road to Calais, 1974
Road to Calais, 1990
Pavilion in Saint-Cloud, 1976
Aramis' dissertation, 1974
Aramis dissertation, 1990
Letter from Madame de Chevreuse, 1974
Confession of Athos, 1974
Confession of Athos, 1990
Before the duel with the British, 1974
Before the duel with the British, 1990
The British and the French, 1976
Lunch with the prosecutor, 1974
Lunch with the prosecutor, 1990
D'Artagnan and Katie, 1976
Soubrette and Mistress, 1974
Soubrette and Mistress, 1990
D'Artagnan at Athos, 1990
Richelieu and d'Artagnan, 1974
Richelieu and d'Artagnan, 1976
Richelieu and d'Artagnan, 1990
D'Artagnan and the killer, 1974
Anjou wine, 1976
Marital Scene, 1974
Marital Scene, 1976
Marital Scene, 1990
Bastion of Saint-Gervais, 1974
Bastion Saint-Gervais, 1990
Milady's Arrival in England, 1990
Milady, Lord Winter and Felton, 1976
Milady's Escape, 1974
Milady's Escape, 1990
The Murder of Constance, 1976
Athos at the Lille Executioner, 1990
Milady's Trial, 1974
Execution of Milady, 1974
Execution of Milady, 1990
Epilogue, 1974
Epilogue, 1990
Illustrations found on the dumania website.
The most vivid memories, as you know, are from childhood. The most delicious ice cream, the most interesting films, fun ski trips, trips to the skating rink, and the most scary stories told to each other before bed, all this seems to have happened only then. And of course, the greedy “swallowing” of books, especially adventure ones.
Looking through these publications now, I remember that bright and carefree time. How they imagined themselves as heroes of the plots, how they tried to finish reading as quickly as possible to the picture. Then again and again. And what a pity that the last page was approaching.
I don’t know about anyone, but my favorite book was the publication “The Three Musketeers” with illustrations by Ivan Kuskov. And although it is believed that the images of the heroes of Dumas’s novel were best conveyed by the artist Maurice Leloir, the “pictures” from the childhood book are dearer to my heart.
Book graphics are complicated in that the illustrator, as a co-author of the publication, must under no circumstances destroy the images that have already arisen when reading the story. On the contrary, its task is to combine the vision of the writer, the illustrator and the reader.
Ivan Kuskov (1927-1997) - Moscow graphic artist. During his life he designed more than a hundred books. The most famous of them are Charles Dickens, Charles Coster, Fenimore Cooper, Mine Reid, Jonathan Swift, Miguel Cervantes, Walter Scott and Alexandre Dumas. His favorite technique is ink and pen.
The artist accurately depicted Dumas's characters, the atmosphere and romantic spirit of that era. The animated heroes of his illustrations seem to have come out of engravings of the 17th century, in which the action took place. Their features, details of the costume, weapons, every feather on the hat are carefully drawn. All these nuances determined a kind of “dress code” for a nobleman, military man or official of that time. The style of Kuskov’s works corresponds to the very descriptive manner of the novel and reflects Dumas’s desire to give a comprehensive story about the appearance, habits, and manner of dressing in order to more accurately reveal the images of his characters.
